Water Security for Palestinians and Israelis

Towards a New Cooperation in Middle East Water Resources

Christopher Ward, Isabelle Learmont, Sandra Ruckstuhl

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780755637980
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780755637959
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Shared water resources in Israel and Palestine are often the site of political, economic, historical, legal and ethical contestation. In this, the second of two volumes on the subject, the authors look beyond the political tensions of the region, to argue for the need for shared water security and co-operative resource management.

Winning Water Security for Palestinians and Israelis, the authors assess water security in terms of security of access to water resources, security of access to water services and security against risks to and from water. The volume compares and contrasts Israelis remarkable water security with the corresponding water insecurity of the Palestinians. The authors also set out the practical, economic, legal and ethical rationale for a revised cooperation on water security between the two peoples, proposing a workable scheme for putting into practice a new form of cooperation that would hope to benefit both peoples and strengthen their water security.

Part I

Water security for Israelis

Chapter 1

The three components of Israeli water security¹

Although Israel is a small country with scant natural resources, it has achieved a remarkable degree of water security. This security drives a dynamic modern economy that has carried Israel high in the ranks of developed countries. The water resources Israel has come to control are adequate to supply water to households, industry and a thriving agricultural sector. By dint of astute planning and management, technological and institutional innovation and massive investment, the country has been able to bring assured and adequate water supplies to everywhere in the country. Unparalleled performance on wastewater treatment and reuse has recovered and reused almost all wastewater and so almost closed the urban water circuit.

Research, development and now huge investment in desalination have increased water availability – at the time of writing (2020) desalination supplies over four fifths of domestic urban water consumption and two fifths of the country’s total water consumption. The adjacent unbounded sea and abundant offshore energy reserves open the prospect of almost limitless future water resources and secure water autonomy.

Water services to households, industry and agriculture are provided through an integrated nationwide grid that can flow water from Tiberias in the far north to the Negev in the south. Demand management through technology and pricing has made all uses and users of water highly efficient. A policy of charging full cost for water services has sharpened incentives to water saving and underwritten the financial viability of the service providers. Water productivity and efficiency in agriculture are world-beating, thanks to technological advances like drip irrigation, to commercialization and to a switch to high-value crops.

Despite the evident maturity of Israel’s water economy and infrastructure and the high degree of security of water resources and services, risks remain. Underwritten by the prospect of ‘creating’ all the water the country could need through desalination, Israel’s risk management is a combination of far-sighted planning to protect existing resources against both climatic and geopolitical risks, and continued promotion of innovation and investment.

One negative consequence of Israel’s success in water security has been the damage to the environment – the fall in the water table of the Mountain Aquifers and the related drying up of streams where sewage and rubbish took the place of seasonal freshwater flows, the overpumping of the coastal groundwater wells and the intrusion of saltwater into the aquifer, the dangerous drop in levels of Lake Tiberias and the consequent risk that the precious resource will become increasingly salinized, the parlous state of the lower Jordan River, now a filthy drain, the newly moribund, shrinking Dead Sea.

The retreat of the spectre of water scarcity has today allowed Israelis to turn their attention to the restoration and protection of this bruised water-related ecology and environment. Within Israel a new environmental awareness has prompted the start of clean-up of the polluted streams. Efforts at reviving the ecology of the Jordan River require cooperation across frontiers and a start has been made on this. Protection of the environment requires cooperation with the Palestinians, but there are continuing political impediments to this and, at the moment, it is largely cross-border NGOs which are active.

The institutional support for Israel’s remarkable performance in the water sector is equally striking, although characterized by what might appear to be quite contradictory policies. On the one hand, policy since the foundation of the state has been nationalization of water resources and services. On the other hand, Israel has one of the most privatized and commercially minded water industries in the world. This unique combination of public interest and private business has brought huge capital investment, promoted innovation and entrepreneurship, and developed a large and thriving export business in water technology.

It may be that Israel’s current water security might just begin to saw away at the Gordian Knot that binds up the water issues between Israelis and Palestinians. Could it open up the possibility of a new cooperation on water with Palestinians, as it has already done for cooperation with Jordan? Will the logic that environmental protection requires cross-border cooperation drive a new understanding between Israelis and Palestinians? These possibilities will be explored in the third part of this book.

* * *

Achieving water resource security in Israel

Our conquest in water was like winning a second war of independence.

Ori Yogev, senior Israeli civil servant, quoted by Siegel²

Israel faces three considerable natural impediments to water security. One is the limited natural water reso urce which poses challenges in simply sourcing enough water for human consumption and for the development of the economy. The second is variability of the resource between seasons and between years which raises challenges of how to store water economically until it is needed and of how to mitigate the risks of prolonged drought. Finally, geographical imbalance – water is needed throughout the country, but the bulk of the natural resource is at its northernmost tip.

This chapter assesses how Israel has faced up to these challenges and by dint of a long national effort has achieved water security on all three criteria: water resource security, security of water services and security from water-related risks. In this first part of the chapter, we seek to assess how far Israel has achieved security of water resources by first examining the institutions the state has set up for the governance and management of water resources. We then discuss the wide range of often highly innovative measures Israel has deployed to protect and increase its natural water endowment.³

Water governance in Israel

Water belongs to the nation⁴ The very high value that the Zionists had always placed on water since the earliest migrations in the nineteenth century was reflected after the foundation of the state of Israel by the early nationalization of the resource. This move not only reflected the culture of common property that had from the outset characterized the Zionists’ approach to settling and working the land. It also reflected a far-sighted understanding that water was so scarce and so valuable a resource that decisions on its development, allocation and use were better taken by a wise government rather than by a myriad of users.

As a result, water was progressively brought into public ownership during the first decade after independence. A first law, in 1955, imposed regulation on the precious groundwater resource, which was at the time the main source of water. Experience in other countries was already showing that leaving groundwater development and management to farmers, industries and households led to competitive overpumping. The risk increased with the advent of the tube well and powerful electric pumps that allowed well owners to drill deeper and extract much more water. Israel acted early enough to prevent this anarchic development. Under the 1955 law, a licence was needed for all groundwater development, quotas were allocated and all extraction was to be metered and controlled. A second law, in 1957, extended regulation to all other water sources – springs and surface water flows, rainwater and rainwater harvesting, and even to the collection, treatment and reuse of wastewater. No diversion of any water source was allowed without a permit, and water quotas and use were subject to check and control. Finally, the comprehensive Water Law of 1959 declared water to be the property of the nation and all private rights were extinguished.

This nationalization was innovative mainly in that it was effective. The notion of water belonging to a nation and being held in trust is a common one. Many countries have legislation that imposes state ownership and control over water resources in this way, and central control of water resources has been practiced by states in the Middle East since the beginning of history. In Israel, however, there were several differences. The first was that, whereas in most countries a whole baggage of inherited laws, property rights and practices obscured the situation, Israel as a brand-new state could readily declare tabula rasa and start over, and the approach had considerable support at least from the Jewish inhabitants who had a sense of common property and common effort that had characterized the Zionist settlement process. This general support contributed to broad respect for the law and encouraged compliance with it. The views of the Palestinian Arabs, who had been dispossessed of their land and now saw any chance of claiming water rights extinguished, would certainly have been very different.⁵

A second difference from laws of common ownership of water resources in other countries was that control was asserted and effective over all water resources, not just over surface water but also over the Protean groundwater resource and over traditional resources like rainwater, as well as over non-conventional resources like wastewater. Important, too, was the effectiveness of the Israeli administration in implementing the law. A final, important difference was that Israel matched provision for centralized control with an infrastructure plan that essentially gave the state perfect capability to exercise that control.

As a result of its nationalization of water, Israel was able to plan, invest in and manage its water cycle centrally. Water management in Israel became completely centralized. Seth Siegel⁶ quotes Uri Shani, former head of the Israel Water Authority (IWA): ‘We govern the whole cycle of water, from the first drop to final use.’ There is a unified national approach to water, with a single national utility, Mekorot, and a single integrated infrastructure system organized around the National Water Carrier (discussed herein). Access to water is available to all, limited only by price, and nationwide water tariff schedules apply to households and businesses across the entire country.

The notion of water as a national resource is embedded in social attitudes. This ‘all-in-it-together’ sentiment supports a common water-saving culture and even the idea that water is emblematic of the strengthening and expansion of the state of Israel and of its achievements. Water is, in many ways, a source of national pride and – it must be admitted – water is seen by Israelis as an indication of superiority over other nations which, facing the same water constraints, have failed to achieve the same measure of water security. Seth Siegel appositely quotes Professor Arnon Soffer: ‘With water, collective ownership is one of the reasons why we are able to be a villa in a surrounding jungle.’⁷ At the level of political economy, Israel has been able to make a social compact in water: surrender of power and ownership to the state in return for guaranteed quality services. The trade-off is clear: that Israelis have consented to give government power to manage water, regulate prices an d allocate water in exchange for water security.⁸

Sound, independent institutions⁹ At the apex of Israel’s water institutions stands the Israel Water Authority (IWA). The germ of this body lay in the 1959 Water Law which provided for a Water Commission headed by a water commissioner, responsible for planning and regulation of all water activities. However, one drawback with this arrangement soon emerged – the Commission came under political jurisdiction, first of the Ministry of Agriculture – which naturally oriented water investment and supply towards farming – and later of the Ministry of Infrastructure, which had an engineering and water supply bias.¹⁰

Eventually, the government decided to keep politics out and to reorient the Water Commission so that it could take a long-term view independent of sectoral or political interests. Hence, in 2006, the Water Law was amended and the Commission was re-established as an autonomous government agency, the Israel Water Authority, combining planning and regulatory responsibilities for the entire water sector (water resources management, potable water and sanitation, wastewater treatment and irrigation) with full powers to plan and regulate the water sector without political interference. Other regulatory bodies which previously existed in the water and sanitation sectors were absorbed into the IWA.¹¹

Water infrastructure and bulk water supply are the responsibilities of Mekorot. Mekorot (which means Sources in Hebrew) had been established in 1937 during the Mandate period. In today’s Israel, it is responsible for water infrastructure development, bulk water supply, desalination and wastewater treatment. In a set of reforms in 2007 designed to improve the efficiency of the water sector, Mekorot was corporatized and transformed into a regulated public company. It has been successful in operating with this new status. It has a strong balance sheet, with a AAA credit rating in the United States and sound operating results. Annual turnover is in excess of the equivalent of $1 billion. Sound finances have enabled it to borrow an average of the equivalent of $300 million a year for investment over the last decade.¹²

The infrastructure that Mekorot manages is vast and complex. In addition to the works to extract water from Lake Tiberias and the management of the National Water Carrier (discussed herein), the company also runs over 2,500 pump stations and 1,200 wells as well as more than 100 large earth reservoirs.¹³ Mekorot has entered into a number of international partnerships fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction: The divergence of two peoples and the nature of water security
• Part I WATER SECURITY FOR ISRAELIS
• Part II WATER (IN)SECURITY FOR PALESTINIANS
• Part III TOWARDS A NEW COOPERATION ON WATER SECURITY FOR ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright